Students Help 'Take Hate Out of Howell'

In a time when social media can spread a rumor as fast as it can a fact a pair of Howell High School seniors are doing their part to show what makes their town and their school special. 

The students, who asked not to be identified, said they started the page after other accounts on the popular site "were making really nasty groups on Twitter." With that in mind @HateOutOf Howell was started on Thursday night and by Friday night had more than 900 followers.

With so much popularity so quickly, they said it has been good to see so many positives coming out of the school after morale dropped because of the other feeds. "Everyone got really down," they said. "We said we should make a nice one. We realized this was a problem and we try to get involved as much as we can."

As part of the page the students will "write nice comments about everyone that follows us," according to their description. They also are accepting direct messages from people to post nice things about their friends to all the followers. 

With just a few months left until graduation the students said they were somewhat surprised by how quickly word of their feed spread. "At Howell High School you can't do anything without stuff spreading," they said with a laugh.

As the requests to follow grew the students said they were overwhelmed by the response. "We were in tears, both of us were in tears," they said. "We wanted to let everyone know that Howell doesn't suck and not everything is negative in Howell."

Even less than a day into starting the page the students said they saw the difference walking through the halls. "The difference between yesterday and today when everyone was hating each other to everyone loving each other was really good," the said.  

They have no plans to unveil their identities until at least graduation but the students said they hope they have started a trend that can continue after their graduation. "We're really happy," they said. "When I say we were in tears, we were in tears all night."

Seeing all the positive feedback has also meant a lot to them in such a short time. "They say we're making them feel good, but they're making us feel good."

In taking what was a negative situation in their school and making it a positive the two students said they were glad to bring Rebel Pride to the internet.